


Rough Sketch

by kaydeefalls



Category: Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Chabon
Genre: Community: contrelamontre, Ficlet, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-04-29
Updated: 2003-04-29
Packaged: 2017-10-09 07:32:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/84567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaydeefalls/pseuds/kaydeefalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"A sketch. A what do you call it, character study? Moment in time?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rough Sketch

"You've got the new Escapist issue inked?" Sammy Clay asked by way of greeting. The door slammed shut behind him and he plopped down onto the sofa that Rosa hadn't yet thrown out. ("I'll get around to it tomorrow," she liked to promise.)

Joe Kavalier blinked across the room at him, the heavily caffeinated coffee haze practically visible around his face. Or maybe that was cigarette smoke. "You're early."

"Come on," Sammy chided, "we have to give it over today, remember? Just 'cause we're big shots doesn't mean we don't have deadlines."

Joe rubbed at his eyes, leaving spots of ink on his face. His fingers were stained a dark purple-black. "Almost I am finished. An hour more." He turned back to the fifth-from-last page and set his inking brush to the paper.

The grandfather clock chimed in the next room. Sammy laughed. "You've gotta have something to show for yourself, at least."

Joe indicated the bedroom with a jerk of his head. "The rest of the pages. On Rosa's writing desk. Or in it, maybe, I don't know. There."

The bedroom was a war zone, as always. Rosa had hit a particularly messy phase in her art, and scraps of brightly colored paper littered the floor. A large, squarish black vase reigned over the bedspread, and a surprisingly drab seashell collection had found its way over the pillows. The desk was a jumbled mass of papers, bearing a singular resemblance to Fifth Avenue after a ticker-tape parade. The Escapist's latest adventures featured prominently in the upper righthand corner.

Sammy shook his head and began sorting through the pile, organizing pages as he found them. As he hefted the final comic book (minus the last five pages), a sheet of paper slipped out, fluttered gracefully to the color-strewn floor. Cursing, he bent to retrieve it.

When Joe saw him emerge from the bedroom, eight minutes after entering it, he noted the single sheet of paper in Sammy's hand.

"What," Sammy asked quietly, "is this?"

Joe's eyes flickered to it for a second, then back to the page he was currently inking. "A sketch. A what do you call it, character study? Moment in time?"

"Of me."

"Yes."

"And Tracy Bacon."

"Apparently." Joe finished the army of tanks with a flourish of bombshells exploding. He flexed his fingers, worked out the crick in his neck, and finally turned to face Sammy. "It is good, no?"

It was a skillfully sketched tableau of Tracy and Sammy in a rough-but-tender embrace. They were both naked, in the true Grecian ideal, and meticulously rendered. Tracy's strong arms were encircling Sammy's too-thin waist, his lips caressing Sammy's chest. One large hand was cupped around Sammy's nether region, and Sammy's head was thrown back in passion, twisting so as almost to look at the artist.

The real Sammy's hands were shaking. "When did you...?"

Joe shrugged. "You used my bedroom."

There was a heavy pause, then Sammy shook his head to clear it. "You and Rosa were supposed to be with her parents that night."

"We were. I had left something, what I do not know, and I came back to retrieve it. And you were—"

"Yes," Sammy said hastily. "I know what we were. But I didn't know you were watching."

Joe shrugged again. "It does not matter."

To buy time, Sammy studied the sketch again. He had to admit it was very well done, even better than that first drawing of Rosa in bed that Joe had given away. The figures of the two men—it was easier for him to think of them as "two men," rather than himself and Tracy—were beautifully, almost perfectly outlined, although Tracy's proportions had perhaps been exaggerated a little to emphasize the contrast. And the sketch-Sammy's face was intriguing, ambiguous, one eye half-closed in passion or almost—

"I'm winking," Sammy said.

"Yes," Joe agreed, taking the paper out of his frozen hands. "An artistic pretension."

"Winking," Sammy repeated. He felt his face grow warm. He couldn't quite meet Joe's eyes. "Perhaps," he started hesitantly, his voice gaining strength as he continued, "it would be best if you didn't show this to Rosa. Or Tracy." He didn't reach out to Joe. He didn't have to.

A strange little smile flickered across Joe's face. His long, thin fingers traced the ink of Tracy Bacon's hand where it cupped sketch-Sammy's crotch. He looked across the paper at real-Sammy, quiet heat flashing in his dark eyes. "No, I do not think I shall tell Bacon."

In a classic case of life imitating art imitating life, Sammy winked at him.


End file.
